Antizionists and other bigots in my valley

geoffff

The "Insiders" Beacon on the Hill

Echonetdaily is the voice of of "progressivism" in the Tweed Valley and therefore almost never publishes what I have to say about "Palestine" and Israel. For them, this is a closed world where "Zionists" are evil and the "Palestinians", and all who support Palestinianism , are a light unto the nations.

In the tradition of "thinking locally and acting globally"  this blog will treat Echonetdaily with the same courtesy as it treats all soft and ignorant Jew-haters who would have us believe that the whole Middle East problem is because of the Jews.  

This letter was published today in their electronic newspaper. 

Gareth Smith, Byron Bay

It’s so good to see Byron Shire locals helping to relieve Ethiopia’s water crisis through their Wellwishers charity which has sunk 510 wells since 2002, changing the lives of 220,000 people: brilliant! (Echo,April 30).

Byron Friends of Palestine support the Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) which, through its Maia (‘water’ in Arabic) campaign, has provided clean water to 16 large UN schools in Palestinian refugee camps and to 22 kindergartens in refugee camps, towns, and villages.

They achieved this despite Israel’s blockade of water purification units, destruction of Gaza’s electricity generating station and water infrastructure.

Operation Cast Lead, for example, destroyed or made unusable 800 of Gaza’s 2,000 wells and caused $5.97 million in damage to Gaza’s wastewater treatment  facilities.

While Israelis enjoy 300 litres of water/day per capita, Palestinians average about 70 litres/day against the World Health Organisation’s recommended 100 litres/day per person.

Access to clean water is a basic human right and Israel’s water deprivation tactics are a violation of international law which the world community should not tolerate.

...........

Complete bullshit. As anyone in possession of the facts could tell you in a second.

Byron Bay. That would be right. Three times as many people have been killed in the Syrian civil war in the last two years than "Palestinians" in the war against Jewish nationhood and the Jews since 1948. The people at Echonetdaily seriously don't give a stuff about that. 

Che Gorilla replied on behalf of this blog and all decent people everywhere.

There are grave violations of international law in that part of the world. All of them are committed by Hamas, Fatah and their murderous allies.

The criminals are not the Israelis who provide water, power, food and medical services to the “Palestinian” population in massive quantities. The criminals are the “Palestinian” leadership who have viciously oppressed these people for decades. Do not be fooled into supporting these racist fronts for antisemitic propaganda.

Will Echonetdaily even publish this reply?

I doubt it. They never have. Maybe it is time to get in touch with their advertisers.  Now there's a Zionist conspiracy theory they can dine out on.

Update

They did not.

The Remains of Ben Zygier

geoffff

R.I.P.

At The Conversation ( "The enemy of trusted journalism is disinformation and spin")  what hopefully is the last gasp of the "Prisoner X" affair is being exhaled and this tragic business can finally be put to rest and the family left in peace. No doubt the conspiracy theories will continue forever and for certain it will be slyly integrated into the eternal disinformation campaigns against Israel and the Jews. That always happens. 

Associate Professor Felix Patrikeef took on the job of writing two short pieces for The Conversation in  an information vacuum that was being filled to the brim with disinformation in the general media and overflowing with malicious spin.

The first was on 22 February when the "affair" was at its peak and the whole Australian political class was in an orgasmic rapture of rancid speculation especially in the Fairfax/ABC mindgroup.  At its worst journalists pontificated about the dual loyalty of the Australian You Know Whoooos. They do that. They have always done that. 

The second was posted three days ago. It is striking how fundamentally the political climate surrounding the "affair" has changed in these weeks. There is only one reason for this. Der Speigal published an article which among other things killed stone dead  the more lurid and ugly analyses at least in public or polite company where  "progressives" still believe it expedient to suppress open displays of antisemitism. Then the ABC hammered the last nail when the Foreign Correspondent team, the same unit that broadcast the original story, broadcast an update last Monday. 

So what have we learnt? That Israel sometimes uses clones of foreign passports to provide cover for its agents on national security missions while abroad? Duh. So does every other  intelligence and security agency in the world  including the Australian  Security and Intelligence Service as an Australian politician got into strife for publicly almost admitting when the Dubai affair broke.  What else?

On 15 February this blog  said this when there really wasn't a lot to talk about but a certain element of the Australian media and political classes were absolutely preoccupied with talking about it anyway. What to say? 

What does the Prisoner X tragedy prove?

Nothing at all really.

 As if there has never been a death in custody in an Australian prison.

As if Australian law does not provide not only for the prosecution of persons employed by Australian security agencies for divulging secret information but also for the trial proceedings to be in secret AND even for the prosecution of court officials who keep a record of those proceedings.

That the Australian and Western media have demonstrated how much and how intensely they absolutely love a dead Jew?

Not that either. We already knew that.

Contrast the treatment of this affair with how the same political classes are coping with the news that the Boston marathon outrage was an attack by political Islamist ideology. 

This is a job for Che Gorilla who as usual took it upon himself to venture forth into the The Conversation on the ground he is the only non-human primate in this outfit and therefore really the only one qualified to engage intellectuals especially on their own turf. He knows his way around a jungle when he sees one. 

Che Gorilla

Human Rights Activist

This is the second piece from Professor Patrikeef on Prisoner X. Much has changed since the first was posted at The Conversation on 22 February. Almost nothing was known then as you would expect about national security matters in both Australia and Israel. However nothing of any particular interest is known now. What is interesting is how Australian commentators and observers including in the universities have handled the saga.

The first article was mainly about the al-Mabhouh Dubai operation and the small part that an Australian passport was able to play in neutralising this dangerous international criminal and terrorist while he himself was on an operation. In a vacuum this was within the range of reasonable informed speculation I suppose but as it turned out there was no connection between Zygier and the Dubai incident and the subsequent diplomatic fallout.

Now we can only speculate about why an intelligence asset that the Israelis were cultivating, and who Zygier apparently stupidly betrayed, only served three years instead of fifteen ( or indeed taken out the back and shot after "debriefing" -- this is Hezbollah after all), and whether he was a real asset or a double (or triple) asset or just an asset in progress. Or a double asset in progress or ...

Enough.

As for Ben Zygier? Now that we know what we should have known in the first place, that his death was suicide just as the Israelis said it was (why would you put a man you intended to liquidate in a high security "suicide proof" cell that was supposed to be under video surveillance?). Like every death in custody it was a tragedy but was the result of at worst pretty typical organisational bungling and incompetence that you can see anywhere in the world and not the result of malice or foul play. How boring.

What's more he was treated humanely, had full access to his family and lawyers and was receiving due process. How very boring.

A barometer of how Israel is treated by the "progressives" and others in Australia is in the comments threads of the two pieces.

There were 68 comments under the February article and they ranged the full range of speculative malice. This was cold blooded murder back then. Prisoner X had been "imprisoned without trial" and "tortured". There was"substantial evidence of the collusion of Israeli institutions & authorities - including the courts - in covering up and denying Zygier due process. "

"lets face it - he was executed"

"No shadow of doubt - you can see Netanyahu's own fingerprints on Zygier's neck under the gravestone"..

Not much room for speculation there.

And now that it is known to be all crap you can gauge the loss of interest here. 11 comments only and a few of those are by the usual anti-Israel fanatics.who spend their time scanning the internet for opportunities to vent undisguised Jew hatred.

In a news vacuum speculation mushrooms but it is now a law of nature that when the matter concerns Israel or anything remotely connected in the public (and academic) mind, such as Islamic militarism and terrorism, the speculation will quickly gurgle into elaborate, malicious and utterly baseless conspiracy theories.

Evidence is irrelevant.

Compare and contrast this with the Boston Marathon bombings for instance where once again The Conversation provides a classic counterpoint. To have even prematurely suggested that the bombings might have been inspired by political Islamist ideology before it was known for sure that the attack was inspired by political Islamist ideology was to invite condemnation for "Islamophobia". Moreover it was perfectly acceptable to more than speculate about a well funded conspiracy of the you know whoooos to wage an Islamophobic campaign of hate against all Muslims.

Not much room for speculation there either.

A discussion of this phenomenon at The Conversation is here.

cross posted Israel Thrives

Just Another Dumb Academic

geoffff

"Thank You Intel.  Now Boycott Israel "

Israel is a leader in adult stem cell research in the treatment of the neurological disease ALS or Lou-Gehrig's Disease. Research is at the clinical trial stage. This is the disease that Stephen Hawking has.

The equipment that Hawking uses to communicate with the world has at its core, technology developed by Intel Israel. 

To accept an invitation from the President of Israel to a scientific conference and then to publicly cancel and join a boycott is more than just boorish manners and ignorance. 

There has to be some plane in time in some dimension of the multiverse where the miracle of human inquisitiveness tips for the urge for its own extinction. Surely the end of time's brief history. Hawking may have found it. He can keep it.  

Zionist Conspiracy has a suggestion that should relieve Hawking of any pending moral dilemma now that he has used Israeli scientific knowledge to add his voice to the racist and morally repugnant BDS campaign. Harsh but fair. 

  I would like to propose that if Israeli researchers discover a cure for the disease, it should be refused to Stephen Hawking.   After all, we would not want to compromise his strong moral stand on behalf of the "suffering Palestinians"!   And boycott for the goose is also boycott for the gander.  Let us not put Hawking into any uncomfortable ethical position now that he has decided to join the BDS terrorists and boycott Israel.  So let us help him avoid compromising his principles and simply let him know in advance that he will be denied any cure for ALS that ever comes out of any Israeli institution or research.

"No Jew stem cell injections for me"

hat tip Doodad and  Ziontruth  at Israel Thrives

update

Alan Dershowitz at the Algemeiner  

The only logical conclusion that can be derived from Stephen Hawking’s decision to join the academic boycott of Israel, coupled with his enthusiastic visits to Iran and China, is that he actively endorses and supports the repression practiced by the Iranian mullahs and the Chinese party bosses. Why else would he single out the world’s only Jewish state for his academic boycott?

Prior to the cancelation of his academic talk in Israel, it might have been argued that his visits to Iran and China reflected not support for the regimes but rather a neutral approach to academics, or a refusal to participate in academic boycotts.  No longer can this justification work.  The only possible justification for distinguishing between Israel on the one hand and Iran and China on the other hand would be if Israel’s actions were worse than those of Iran and China.  Only a knave or a fool would believe that to be so.  Israel’s academies are among the most open, diverse and free in the world.  Israeli universities have affirmative action programs for Palestinians and other minorities.  Political dissenters receive tenure and thrive at Israeli universities.

Read on

The New Antisemitism

geoffff

A recently broadcast Israeli documentary on modern antisemitism. Produced by Ya’acov Eilon . Harrowing.

hat tip Elder of Ziyon

Letter From Israel

    elinor        אלינור   

                                                                                                                        

New Grocery Store, New Butcher

Our nearest grocery store is shabby, the cashiers are nerky and frequently absent and the management simply doesn't care.  Slimy lettuce leaves on the floor are a constant danger.  I really try not to patronise it because it’s such a trial.

Wandering beyond my new neighbourhood, I discovered a branch of this store but one quite differently managed.  I quickly decided it was a real find, stocked with items I thought were gone from here forever—Quaker Squares, Knorr Kneidlach, even Schweppes Tonic Water without Popsicle flavouring—wow.  I drifted to the back to find a meat counter resembling a newly constructed stage set, completely unattended.  Shortly a nice, round, man in a spotless apron came in from a side door and asked if he could help me. I admired his bristling, white moustaches before remarking on the bargain prices I was seeing in the case.  Meat of any kind is expensive in Israel.

It’s been a long time since I had a kindly, capable butcher.  My former butcher, a native of Brooklyn, exchanged his shift with that of a colleague so as to attend a lecture and got dead in a suicide bus bombing in Jerusalem, many years ago.  So when this man, whom I felt was one of our ‘cousins’, greeted me with warmth, I was happy to have him show me his domain.  The chickens and beef were basically the same as those sold absolutely anywhere in this country, but the showcases were clean and the meat looked fresh and appealing.  I chose some karayim, which are called Maryland in Australia (I don’t know why) and legs-and-thighs or pulkas elsewhere. 

Cut them up for you? he asked.  Yes, please.  Remove the schmaltz?  Yes.  What was that?  Startled, I looked up at the Arab butcher who was surgically removing the fat from my chickens and humming By mir bis du Schoen under his breath.  Um, where do you come from?  Teibeh, a village about half an hour’s drive from here.  Uh huh. 

Hurrying to a doctor’s appointment I did not get the rest of the story but oh boy, when I have time, will I return to my Yiddish-speaking Arab butcher and find out.  Maybe he once was a shabbas goy, as was General Colin Powell in his youth. 

The chicken was very tasty.

Cross posted Israel Thrives

Creeping Racism in Australian Universities --- Exhibit A

geoffff

This is an article recently published in The Conversation by someone described as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of South Australia 

25 April 2013, 7.57am EST

Boston bombings: beware the multi-million dollar Islamophobia industry

Local commentators have variously described reactions to the Boston Marathon bombing, which killed three people and injured 183 others, as “restrained”, “refreshingly honest” and wholly different to what unfolded after September 11, 2001.

True, this time round we were spared the “with us or against us” clash of civilisations rhetoric from those in power. And thankfully, save for a hijab-clad woman punched while dropping her daughter at a Boston playgroup and a Bangladeshi man bashed for looking Arab in the Bronx, we have not seen the same wave of violent attacks on Muslims that gripped the US in the wake of 9/11.

Nevertheless, the US Islamophobia industry has seized on the bombing to bolster its campaign of misinformation and fear-mongering, and we would do well to pay careful attention.

Do read the whole piece.  Here are highlights of  this brave scholar's daring expose of the well funded, secretive and cunning conspiracy to convert the Boston bombings into anti-Islamic hatred. 

By Thursday, US conservative commentator Glenn Beck was issuing ultimatums to the Obama administration: admit that the bombing was the work of a “bad, bad, bad” Saudi national who has since been deported back to the Kingdom, or Beck would expose the government’s complicity in the culprit’s escape from justice.

A huh. Glenn Beck. I've heard of him. Step one

While it is unclear where Beck sourced his wild allegations, they bear a striking resemblance to the nonsense that former CNN reporter and self-styled terrorism expert Steven Emerson consistently spouted throughout the week.

OK.  Steven Emerson. I hadn't heard of him but he's firmly in the picture for sounding like Glenn Beck. Step two.

Emerson has an impressive and well-documented record of spreading false information. The US media watchdog FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting) has been drawing attention to Emerson’s consistently anti-Muslim and anti-Arab reportingsince the early 1990s. ...Most notorious was Emerson’s claim in the immediate aftermath of the 1995 Oklahoma bombing – which turned out to be the work of far-right extremist Timothy McVeigh – that it bore a “Middle Eastern trait” because it “was done with the intent to inflict as many casualties as possible”. 

My that is notorious. This is called intuition.   As Albert Einstein once noted intuition is "nothing but the outcome of earlier intellectual experience”.  A psychologist might say “nothing more and nothing less than recognition”. Sometimes intuition can be wrong. Step three.

That same year he (Emerson) wrote in the Jewish Monthly that Islam “sanctions genocide, planned genocide, as its religious doctrine”.

The Jewish Monthly? The plot thickens. Step four. The clincher coming up.

Emerson’s ideas are not only warmly received by the Christian Right and the pro-Israel lobby, they have also made inroads into Congress.

O no. Not the pro-Israel lobby! I just knew it. Almost there. Step five.

Emerson’s is but one voice in a well-resourced industry of Islamophobia in the US. This network includes Daniel Pipes, Frank Gaffney, Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, Brigitte Gabriel and others, and a seemingly endless stream of funding ensures that its anti-Muslim diatribe is a steady feature of mainstream US political discourse.
...

While Muslims may not have faced as many random attacks on the street this time round, they remain fixed in the crosshairs of a multi-million dollar industry dedicated to the sole purpose of hating them.

And that just about wraps things up. However this is a scholar who cannot resist the urge to comment on her own article. And it is there that she drives the nail home. 

Chloe Patton

Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Muslim and non-Muslim Understanding at University of South Australia

I's very difficult to tell who is funding these groups because they channel funds through intermediary trusts such as Donors Capital so as to remain anonymous. The CAP report I cite in the article makes a guess concerning the source of the $17 million donated to the Clarion Fund, but there's no way of knowing for certain

That sounds sinister.

Chloe Patton

Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Muslim and non-Muslim Understanding at University of South Australia

In reply to Pat Moore

Good point about the Israeli lobby, Pat. Steven Emerson presented a paper at the AIPAC annual conference just last month. Alex Kane over at Mondoweiss had this to say about it:

"The appearance of a major fomenter of Islamophobia at AIPAC is a prominent example of how Islamophobia has become entwined with strong support for Israel--particularly the right-wing brand of Zionism, though more mainstream Zionist organizations, like AIPAC, also legitimize anti-Muslim sentiment.

Emerson’s appearance is in line with how the Israel lobby utilizes Islamophobia to further its own goals by trying to marginalize Muslim American political organizing and by casting the Israel/Palestine conflict as a civilizational clash between Christianity and Judaism on one side and Islam on the other."

http://mondoweiss.net/2013/03/approval-islamophobe-emerson.html

Mondoweiss. That's all right then. That makes it authoritative
. 
And there you have it. Barely a week had passed since the Boston murders and here is an allegedly serious academic at an allegedly serious university who can only write about Muslims in the crosshairs of a multi million dollar campaign dedicated to the sole purpose of hating Muslims and is funded by we don't know who because they are so good at covering their tracks but we all know are the you know whoooos. Who else can it be?

Lest their be any doubt here are some other comments on that thread. This is a moderated academic site funded by the universities and the public. 

Mearsheimer and Walt's groundbreaking study "The Israeli Lobby" revealed years ago the power of AIPAC to influence US domestic and foreign policy, including "coalition of the willing" wars. The policies of Israel in the Middle East with a zionist dominant government may not be in the best interests of the US or its allies, including Australia.

Absolutely ground breaking. Atom splintingly debunked.

On another note, to be quite honest, I wouldn't even be surprised if these people aren't even genuine racists. Some love any form of attention and start believing their own b.shit after a while due to the support and ratings they receive from ignorant and racist viewers. Same sorta people whom didn't want to give African Americans the vote, applied the white Australia policy and so on and on. It's a shame though, when Jewish bodies, ie AIPAC supporting such notions, after going through what Jews went through in the holocaust.

The "they of all people" gambit. They just can't leave the Holocaust out of it.  

Some will know that the in-house ape takes for himself the role of commenting abroad when the punters are intellectuals. He does this on the basis that as a non-human primate he is the brains of the outfit and less likely to exhibit bias or emotional involvement on account of these people being human beings funded by the taxpayer. 

Che Gorilla

Human Rights Activist

In reply to Baz M

If one needs any more proof that antisemitism and mindless racist bigotry has now deeply penetrated the "progressive" class then you seriously do not have to go past this comment.

Here's a reality check. This is supposed to be a serious exchange of opinion at an Australian site with academic pretensions. The article is problematic enough. There's just been another vile crime committed against innocents in the cause of an ugly ideology that if it does not defile Muslims certainly defiles humankind and what is the subject? A multi-million dollar Zionist conspiracy against the Muslims.

Then read this comment and ask the question. What the hell do the Jews have to do with this? Do you seriously believe this?

But that isn't all Che had to say. He made another comment. But the moderators pinged it. This is the deleted comment.

This is an important article. It has been written by someone who presents as engaged in a serious field of research at an important Australian university.

And yet it is the most offensive pile of sham intellectualism and conspiracy-minded spiteful bigotry that you would hope not to expect to see outside of the Weimar Republic circa 1932.

Let's face the truth here. There has been yet another barbaric crime committed in the noble cause of this sick extremist ideology and here is someone who comes out spitting the most vile allegations against the Jews barely hours after the bodies of the victims have been buried. A "well funded" "Islamophobic'  conspiracy.

Sure it is. The Israel lobby. The Zionists.

If this is "Muslim and non-Muslim understanding"  then all I can say is may God and the eternal help the Muslims. And the rest of us.

And why did they remove these innocuous observations from the hairy one?

The Conversation wrote to Che to tell him.

Dear Che Gorilla,

Your comment on 'Boston bombings: beware the multi-million dollar Islamophobia industry ' has been removed.

There are several reasons why this may have occurred:

1) Your comment may have breached our community standards. For example it may have been a personal attack, or you might not have used your real name.

2) Your comment may have been entirely blameless but part of a thread that was removed because another comment had to be removed.

3) It might have been removed for another editorial reason, for example to avoid repetition or keep the conversation on topic.

For practical reasons we reserve the right to remove any comment and all decisions must be final, but please don't take it personally.

Or in the case of the gorilla, don't take it hominidaely.  So which could it be?  Surely it couldn't have anything to do with "community standards" given that The Conversation had just published a slab of antisemitic conspiracy theory in classic form masquerading as academic enquiry. And Che Gorilla is  scrupulous about using his real name. 

So what could it possibly be?

cross posted Israel Thrives

Oh, I just couldn't let this go by!

Mike L.

{Cross-posted at Israel Thrives.}

MEMRI gives us this:

Iranian Official: The Jews Use Sorcery Against Iran

An Iranian regime official and a website close to the regime have recently accused the Jews of engaging in sorcery and of employing it against Iran.

Mehdi Taeb, who is close to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and heads Khamenei's Ammar Base think tank, said in April 2013 that the Jews are the most powerful sorcerers in the world today, and that they have used their powers to attack Iran – for instance by turning the U.S. into their tool and getting it to impose sanctions on Iran, and also through attempts, albeit failed, to interfere in the 2009 elections. He added that while Iran has so far withstood their assaults, they have not yet used the full scope of their powers against it.
In March 2013, the Rasanews.ir website, which is associated with the religious seminaries in Qom, posted an article about the status of sorcery and numerology in Jewish mysticism. According to this article, Jews cherish the knowledge of sorcery, pass it down from generation to generation, and believe that it can be used to control mankind, nature and even God's decisions.

The following are excerpts from Taeb's statements and from the article on Rasanews.ir. 

Mehdi Taeb, Official Close to Khamenei: 'So Far, [The Jews] Have Not Used The Full [Scope Of] Their Sorcery Against Us'

This deserves a very big Tip 'O the Kippa to the Elder of Ziyon.

Sorcery?

Really?

Sorcery, you say?

I have to tell you guys that writing this blog is not always fun, but then there are moments like this!

Every time that I think that the pure stupidity of anti-Jewish bias must have some limits I see a story like this one.

It's pure, unadulterated nonsense and hate and that's all it is.  Thirteen million Jews, four hundred million Arabs, one point five billion Muslims, and lots and lots of unadulterated nonsense and hatred.

We have to recognize and acknowledge that what the Jews in the Middle East are up against is not some principled resistance against alleged oppression, but oppression, itself.  Israel is a democratic Jewish country that is armed to the teeth primarily because so many of it's neighbors are vicious and irrational bigots who would slaughter those Jews, given half a chance, in a New York minute.

Decade upon decade upon decade Israel seeks reconciliation while maintaining self-defense and decade upon decade upon decade Israel gets spat at and maligned in the most vicious and cruel terms possible.  What makes it so much worse, though, is the fact that our false friends in the west at best think that they can negotiate with these morons and at worst blame us for the hatred toward us.

You want the truth?  You can't handle the truth.  Certainly Barack Obama would not recognize the truth on this matter if it came up and kicked him in the teeth.

The truth is that the Arab world has maligned the Jews for centuries and continues to do so while seeking to murder us there.  The truth is also that the allegedly "enlightened west" tends to think that they have a point and often supports them.

That's the truth.  That's the main truth that applies.

If you honestly think that this is about land then you are not looking at the conflict in a rational manner.  It's not about the "West Bank."  It's not about Jewish "settlers" in Judea.  It's about widespread and virulent and violent and genocidal Arab-Muslim racism against Jews and it's about a political movement throughout the Middle East that promotes that hatred and that receives the support of the president of the United States.

I did not like president Bush the Second because, as a liberal Democrat, I opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Particularly Iraq.  But this does not change the fact that the current American administration tends to think that the conflict is your fault.

It isn't.